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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113830">The End of an Era.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_Moroccan/pseuds/Random_Moroccan'>Random_Moroccan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>‘He Who Made a Desert and Called it Peace’ [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But a very twisted one, Emperor Darth Vader, Father-Son Relationship, Other, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:40:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,303</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113830</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_Moroccan/pseuds/Random_Moroccan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Vader's failure at resuscitating his wife, Padmé Amidala Naberrie during the events of Fortress Vader in Mustafar. His craving for power led by his all-too consuming rage increases tenfold which leads the former into challenging his Master, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious for the title of Emperor as well as for the accumulated knowledge of the Sith.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Darth Sidious &amp; Darth Vader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>‘He Who Made a Desert and Called it Peace’ [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089944</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The End of an Era.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On Coruscant raged a battle, one not between armies or fleets but simply between two individuals who may very well be worth more than the beings they led and commanded.</p><p> </p><p>On Coruscant, eight years after the triumph of the New Order over the old, raged a struggle that will once more decide and shape the future of the Galaxy as lesser sentients know it. </p><p> </p><p>On Coruscant, titans fought to the death to claim a mantle born of the hardest of struggle and the purest of ambitions millennias ago. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>One was of pure malice and limitless corruption. The blackest of holes. An insidious creature that made words - not petty blasters or lightsabers - its ultimate weapon, and used mere letters and sentences to twist, to conquer and to rule. It took the purest of lights, the guardian of the light side, the so called "Chosen-one", and weaved a cocoon of lies and half-truths around him until he transformed and hatched as nothing but an enforcer of evil.  </p><p>An apprentice of the Sith. </p><p>An apprentice of the champion of the Darkside. The ultimate Dark Lord of the Sith. </p><p>The Eternal Emperor. </p><p> </p><p>The other was the hardest of ice and the wildest of fire. He was rage, all encompassing, all destructive. A dark sun powered by loss, resentment and hatred. His red sword - once blue - levied, conquered, destroyed and plundered hundreds of worlds. Killed billions of being and enslaved many more. And yet he himself was a slave, destined to serve a higher purpose, destined to lend his blood and power to lesser beings than him that did not deserve his loyalty nor fealty.  </p><p>But no longer. </p><p>He will break his final chain. </p><p>He will prove himself strong enough to topple his slave master. </p><p>He will become power incarnate or he will be dead.  </p><p> </p><p>Thus, the two of them, once ambitious senator and slave, once grandfatherly chancellor and talented Jedi knight, once two different wolves in sheep clothing, said their final words of spite and taunt before breaking the charade of friendship that was established between them in what could only be described as a lifetime ago.  </p><p> </p><p>Then, the leviathans charged at each other in a room that was once the center of wisdom and peace but also of pride and hubris one last time. Channeling a degree of power never seen in the history of existence itself. </p><p> </p><p>In that moment of contact, they struck at each other with everything they had and both flew across the room at opposite directions. </p><p> </p><p>And then there was calm. So complete, so absolute was it, that one could have sworn the universe went silent in that moment of singularity. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>But then an unhuman, semi-robotic, semi-organic like breath bloomed through the Imperial chamber.  </p><p> </p><p>And then another. </p><p> </p><p>And another. </p><p> </p><p>It was raspy, damaged, but it kept on going, weak but unwavering and it was getting closer and closer to the throne of all galactic power. One where the previous master of all existence - as he liked to think himself to be - lied, his life slowly ebbing away. </p><p>         </p><p>                           </p>
<hr/><p>             </p><p> </p><p>He stepped on the marches, one by one. An act that would have had him endure a level of unthinkable punishment and torture mere hours ago. And yet, now, he was free to do so. He did not bow, he did not greet Sidious by the title ‘Master’. No. He did not need to do that anymore; For he gambled his power and his life away only to win, and by doing so proved himself to be the superior Sith. </p><p> </p><p>There were so many things to be said to his vanquished master. For all of the void promises he gave him only to keep him on a leach, for the once promising future he stole from him. </p><p>Palpatine gave him nothing, he played this false game of power equality and pretended to keep the façade of entente between them both, and yet everything had to be taken, ripped apart from his greedy hands at a snail’s paste and only if he allowed it. But he was done playing the slave, for a slave could never have enough power to cheat death and save one’s loved one and he had learned this lesson the hard way. </p><p> </p><p>Now that he was but a meter away, looking down on the Emperor, once someone his past self revered and seeked wisdom from, but now a soon-to-be lifeless husk. He understood that, in these last moments, he could only bring on closure to their relationship.</p><p>The man he saw before his lenses was the man that shaped him, built him into the weapon he became. He taught him the ways of the Sith and pushed him to become stronger, more resilient, until he became the strongest force-user in the universe. </p><p>And so, in the end, Vader thought, he gave him something greater than the Jedi ever did, and that was to be acknowledged, even if he wanted to keep him on a leach as an executioner to enforce his power. </p><p>“For all your schemes, for all your planning, for all your power, you have failed to contain me.”  </p><p>These words were not uttered to spite the dying man, no, it was said as if it was a fact of life as all others.  </p><p>“The Jedi order failed to do so with all their rules and numbers. And now, so did you. Neither the suit nor your underlings kept me from achieving my destiny. </p><p>And now the Empire is mine, thanks to you. And that shall be your legacy.” </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Palpatine’s eyes were fixed upon his apprentice, they were not icy, nor full of anger. For in a way, Vader was the product of his teachings just like he was to Plagueis, and so, to be angry or to refuse the simple truth that he lost to his apprentice would be to deny the grand accomplishment that was the latter.  </p><p>A being that was burnt to a crisp, a fool that lost so utterly and so completely he became nothing but a mere tool like Maul and Tyranus to be changed at the first sign of weakness, and yet a machine-more-than-man that managed to somehow fight and overthrow him by sheer force of will. </p><p>Through loss, he found rage and through the darkside weakness became strengh. And that was only possible because of his guidance.</p><p>And so Palpatine nodded, acknowledging in turn his apprentice’s impromptu speech, before fading into nothingness. His greatest works already etched in history, the death of the Jedi Order, the founding of the Empire and the Birth of Darth Vader.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>There was no climatic end of the crescendo, no grand finale, no celebration or cry of triumph. It was nothing but the turn of a chapter, the transition of the right to rule through strength from a Sith to another.  </p><p>Victory was his yet it still felt like a loss. For in destroying Palpatine, he broke the last chain of his past, every other being dead, often by his own hand in his quest for revenge against those who wronged him during all his former life, or faded into nothingness by themselves. </p><p>In doing so, he made himself the last survivor of an era that saw the upheaval of all life, an era were legends met, fought and bled, and now that he was Emperor himself, he swam in the darkness he conquered. Alone.</p><p>For ultimate power can only come through ultimate sacrifice. That is the way of the Sith. </p><p>After what felt like hours Vader nodded back to Sidious’s corpse before taking the latter’s lightsaber and proceeded to walk out of the throne room - limping but not dead - after making history once again. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>And so, the man who had cheated death in the lava lakes of Mustafar, cheated death once again and the Galaxy was forever changed. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Some might say that Palpatine wouldn't react that way, and it might as well be true. But for me, I tought that, if a man as powerful and as arrogant as him dies at the hand of his apprentice. He would try to rationalize that into something that doesn't hurt his ego. And so, even in death he finds a way to tell himself he won. </p><p>Anyways that's my two senses about that. Comment or like if you want to, don't if you don't want to. And that's about it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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